Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Columbia Law School

Harvard Law Review

Law and Philosophy

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Promises In Morality And Law, Joseph Raz Jan 1982

Promises In Morality And Law, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

J.L. Austin thought that philosophers have much to learn from lawyers and the law. No doubt philosophers and lawyers have a lot to learn from each other wherever their interests intersect. But until now philosophical analysis has done more to elucidate important legal concepts and distinctions than viceversa. P.S. Atiyah's Promises, Morals, and Law may redress this imbalance. In this book, one of today's most accomplished students of the common law examines the nature of promises and the grounds of their binding force. Written in Atiyah's characteristically vigorous and lucid style, the book is a philosophical treatise, but one that …


Fairness And Utility In Tort Theory, George P. Fletcher Jan 1972

Fairness And Utility In Tort Theory, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Fletcher challenges the traditional account of the development of tort doctrine as a shift from an unmoral standard of strict liability for directly causing harm to a moral standard based on fault. He then sets out two paradigms of liability to serve as constructs for understanding competing ideological viewpoints about the proper role of tort sanctions. He asserts that the paradigm of reciprocity, which looks only to the degree of risk imposed by the parties to a lawsuit on each other, and to the existence of possible excusing conditions, provides greater protection of individual interests than the paradigm of …